Enslaved by Straw

I had an extended dream last night of trying to figure out a way to attach my picture to a driver's license that was older and didn't have a picture on it instead of getting a new driver's license. I wanted to avoid going through all the security hassle that getting a new license would entail, so most of my dream involved trying to glue a new picture onto an expired license. But then I kept realizing that this would be considered forgery of a government document. But the dream kept repeating itself in spite of that.

But then something unusual interrupted the flow of this repetitive dream that caused me to wake up a little bit. It was like a message from heaven, though I also realize that it was linked to something I heard Shane Claiborne say from the recording of a fascinating discussion I recently downloaded from Amercian Public Media. The message was that I should not be so obsessed with wanting a license with my picture on it issued by the government because what it really is in heaven's eyes is the badge of a stolen identity.

Shane was referring to the story when Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees about paying taxes to Caesar. The answer He gave was that Caesar could have his money back that had Caesar's picture stamped on it but that he had no ownership over people because they were created with the image of God imprinted in them. In my dream I sensed that this issue went even deeper but along the same line of reasoning.

Society today is all astir and agitated about identity theft and many people are becoming somewhat paranoid and obsessive about trying to hide or destroy anything that might be used to find out any details about themselves. The media keeps this fear very much alive by pushing stories of people's lives “ruined” because of identity thieves finding their social security number, credit card numbers etc. So people are buying paper shredders and sharing stories of phone cameras taking pictures of their credit cards and generally increasing the level of stress in people's hearts to an even higher level of worry. Sometimes I wonder if the identity that they are trying to hide from everyone else is really all that much worth protecting. But that is partly another but related issue.

Identity theft is really a situation where a person gets enough information about another person to convince a business or public service to extend credit to them or sell them goods based on the numbers and names they provide. It can certainly have a devastating effect on a persons credit history which seems rather difficult to reverse even though it was quite easy to accept false charges in the first place. It seems a little baffling that credit agencies have little trouble adding problems to a person's credit history but seem rather resistant to just as easily believe the truth from the actual person trying to rectify the situation.

Identity theft does certainly create a great deal of frustration and problems for people who are victimized by it and many times the long-term effects are never completely erased. There always seems to be a cloud of doubt left over a person's reputation even though they had nothing to do with the original problem. But what does all this have to do with the identity theft that I am referring to as seen from heaven's eyes?

God is extremely protective about the “currency” called humans that He created with His picture on them. In addition, and quite unlike our currency which is not backed up by anything whatsoever of worth, the currency that God created has infinite value that is very real and tangible. The pledged value of every human being is literally backed by the life of the Son of God and He was willing to put it on the table when the value of His “currency” was called into question. Because of this, God and all of heaven is very keen to protect the identity of the people that bear the stamp of heaven.

But Satan has invented a very complex and massive counterfeit currency system along with a counterfeit of God's government and this can easily be seen in the way earthly governments operate. This is not just some theory or a religious notion that is irrelevant to our life right now. This is very real and presents a problem that most people are completely unaware of but affects their lives pervasively. One of the big issues in Satan's counterfeit system reflects his desire to literally steal the identities that God gave us and to replace them with counterfeit identities that we have come to believe is our real identity.

Think carefully about these words of Jehovah spoken from the flames and smoke and thunder on Mount Sinai thousands of years ago revealing the fundamental truths about God and reality.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: (Exodus 20:4 KJV)

You are not to make an image or picture of anything in heaven or on the earth or in the waters under the earth: (Exodus 20:4 BBE)

I understand that some people have taken this to mean that we should never engage in photography of any kind because this might be breaking the Law of God. I am not going to tackle that issue because I believe that God is far more concerned with issues of the heart. On the other hand, the things we do externally usually reflect the realities that are believed at the heart level and so the things we consider important and give great value to reveal what we actually believe about our own identity.

I am just starting to sense after this dream that quite possibly our society's belief, being intensified lately by increasing pressure from the government, that we have to be obsessed with our external identity and are fully responsible for it in some way. This notion itself is a means of making us participates in the theft of our own true identity. We may actually be discovered to be co-conspirators in the attempt by the world to set up an alternative identity in order to obliterate our awareness of our true and far more valuable identity entrusted to us by our original Creator. And part of this identity theft is the use of an identity card carrying a requisite image of our faces on it as an attempt to give a face to this false identity.

Some have learned that this false identity is well known in higher government circles and the fraud is strongly promoted there but not revealed to the average person. Millions are led to believe that this is just that way we have to cooperate in order to get along in this society. That may be true if we are willing to be a cooperative accomplice in our own identity theft. But I am beginning to see that this may not be viewed with favor from heaven's perspective.

In some circles this false image fabricated to replace us is called our “straw man”. For those of you not yet familiar with this term and still uneducated as to what is going on behind the scenes, your straw man is the composite identity that is created by the government at the time of your birth and introduced by your birth certificate. It's name is usually spelled in all capital letters on government records and increasingly more and more of your personal information is being collected to add to the government database being compiled on you.

But what is often seriously misunderstood is that this straw man identity is not the same person as the “human flesh and blood you” that God created in His image. It is a fictional entity that is also classified as a corporation so that the IRS can then claim that “you” owe them taxes. The IRS has absolutely no jurisdiction over sentient human flesh and blood beings in the various States of the united States of America – no one has ever been able to produce the law requiring humans to pay taxes on the money they earn from their labor. (If you can find it you can collect a $10,000 dollar reward) But the IRS does have the ability to tax corporations. Therefore it is imperative that they deceive everyone into believing that they are the fictional corporate “person” created by the government at their birth so that all their life they will assume that they are required to return taxes.

There are many elements that go into making up this fictional straw man that goes by the same-sounding name as that given to you by your parents. The Social Security number assigned to your fictional person is a key element in tracking and compiling all the information possible to add to the identity and value of this fictional straw man. And now it has been enacted by Congress that every person must procure a high security I.D. card, generally in the form of a driver's license, that will soon become the control point for the government to manipulate all of your behavior and access to most anything a person wants to do to interrelate with others around them.

The false, counterfeit governments of earth are doing everything possible to obliterate our perception of our true identity in order to keep us fixated with our fictional identity and believe that our straw man is our real identity. Very many people have already been quite convinced of this ruse and are even ready to commit suicide against their God-given body and soul whenever their fictional person gets into deep trouble. Tragically, what they do not realize is that the fictional person has very little to do with their real identity and their belief that it does is only a false belief, not a fact. But a falsehood believed has the same effect internally as if it were true if it is not exposed and rejected.

So I am starting to see that the urgency of my mind during my dream to think that I must have a driver's license with an image (idol) of my face on it in order to live a normal life is really in opposition to the second commandment in the Law of God. For me to buy into the belief that my identity is composed of my license, my credit records, my bank statements, my work history etc. is to accept the assertion that the false identity created in my image is in fact the real me. This is, in fact, another revelation of my false belief that my value is determined by my performance and my reputation in contradiction to the opinion of my Maker. It is to confirm what Satan is hoping I will believe and to subject myself to all the manipulations that correspond to being the slave that the straw men was created to be for the use of the state.

A most important verse precedes what we usually think of as the Ten Commandments and if it is overlooked we completely miss the context and power of those Revelations of God. Then God spoke all these words, saying, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me." (Exodus 20:1-3) If I do not believe in my heart that I am not a slave, that my real identity is not tied to a fictional person created by the State; if I do not truly believe in my heart that I have been set free from the godlessness represented by Egypt and am no longer a slave to be manipulated and controlled by those slave-masters, then I will be vulnerable to the stresses and fears, terrors and intimidations promoted and rehearsed by those masters and will remain a slave to be continually abused by them. And I will not be free to obey the perfect Law of Liberty. (James 1:25)

If I accept the assumptions about my identity by the media and the government in their communications to me as fact, then I will believe their assertion that I am still a slave and will continue to act like one. In doing so I will have accepted the replacement of my true, God-imparted identity (which I may have never even known) with the false, stolen identity that has usurped my position in life and robbed God of His purchased property. I will live in fear under the threats and intimidations of these earthly slave-masters and will be controlled by other's false assertions about me instead of living in the freedom purchased for me by Jesus Christ.

Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. (Hebrews 2:14-15)